Home
Search transcripts:    Advanced Search
Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 731

We were very fortunate in getting one and then later another man. We got in Raphael Lewy. He was wonderful. He was Vienna and Budapest educated and really an expert on diagnosis. My own suspicion always has been that Lewy was a better diagnostician and a better describer of people's ills than he was a healer of them. He found his niche. He was splendid there. There was another man named Johnson, who was equally good. You could ask either of those two a hypothetical question, or describe the case before you and ask their opinion, and from them you would get a good answer which they could defend against the insurance companies. It was then up to you to decide where the truth lay.

During the course of my administration corruption got its dirty head into the Medical Department - not very seriously, just a little, but among some of the younger men who were only there for a few years. The corruption came via the insurance companies. They tried to get cozy with Dr. So-and-so. The insurance company man would walk into the Medical Department saying, “Doctor, this man doesn't feel very well. Would you kind of hurry up this case? Our doctors think he's lost a quarter of the use of the arm. Would you mind looking at it quickly?” The doctor would give it a quick look and would agree with the insurance company's doctor. That was the way it was done. It was most





© 2006 Columbia University Libraries | Oral History Research Office | Rights and Permissions | Help